All user reviews of 4/5 for the Orange Rockerverb 50 Head

This is Orange's modern rock amp. Clean and lead channel with reverb. Not much more complicated than that. 6V6 tubes and 50 watts. Perfect for gigs. Minimal controls. Not a lot to say here.

UTILIZATION

I played in a pop rock band for a few years and this is one of the amps I tried during that process. I toured with it and everything. I played a Les Paul Custom into it. My pedal board consisted of a boss delay, a tubescreamer, a fulltone ocd, and some boutique chorus I can't remember. Pretty simple. I originally had an orange 2x12 but I found it too bassy so I started using a Splawn half stack with Vintage 30's.

SOUNDS

The clean channel for me was pretty meh to be honest. The reverb is overbearing. On anything higher than 2 it sounds stupid. Just my opinion. I don't really use it anyway. I'm not really sure what label to give the cleans. They aren't vox or fender. Maybe both. They're quite dark and they are usable but in my band we rarely did cleans anyway.

Lead channel through my setup was very very bassy. With the Orange 2x12 is was overkill so I switched to a Splawn cab. That helped a little. Still this amp has a ton of bass. I was shocked. I generally have to run bass at 2 or 3 with everything else past noon. I can't really think of another amp I have to do that to. Tonally, it sounds like a slightly hot rodded JCM800 with more fuzz and thickness in the lower end. That's a simple way of putting it. Maybe it's my rig but I doubt it.

OVERALL OPINION

After a few months of touring I finally got tired of the extreme bass on this amp. I got a nice JCM800 which pleased me a lot more. I can't write off the rockerverb though. If you want a bassy marshall, this is the one to get. Simple as that. It sounds awesome for that application.

I had been waiting a while to try out the Orange amps since they claim they are the Marshall killer. I was a Marshall guy so I needed to be convinced what they claim was true. So I went down to the shop to try it out. The first thing I noticed was that it did sound very good. But I thought to myself which Marshall are they claiming to beat....Plexi, 800, 2000, 900....maybe it was the MG series to which I would completely agree with them on. Perhaps they beat the 900 series or maybe even a unmodified 800. Maybe not that far since the 800 is a classic in rock music. Well it did sound very excellent!

The Rockverb coupled with a 4x12 of the same standard had a great grind and distortion to it. The functions can be a little confusing at first since it is in pictures and words, but it is a classic style to Orange amps which I appreciate. It did have a vintage feel and sound to it which was immediately noticeable. The tone was very classic and classic rock proportioned.

One cool thing that this amp does top any Marshall in the ability to change different power tube from EL34, 6L6s, KT88s, or 6550s which makes this a very cool feature. Being able to tailor your power tube section to your liking is very beneficial. Marshall has dropped the ball on something like this.

I want to say Jimmy Paige was using this amp with the Foo Fighters at Wembly a few year ago...not for certain though. he had a great Orange tone on that dvd.

UTILIZATION

Fairly simple to use that any one can quickly figure out. The controls reacted very nice to even the slightest twist of the knobs. That to me says they build this with very high standards. It took very little time to get a good grind from this amp. The clean channel was very nice as well and to me sounded much better than a Plexi or 800 clean.

The effects loop was done very well in my opinion. I could easily run delays there with out sounded like my OD lost something.



SOUNDS

I used this amp with a Les Paul and a fender Strat. I was able to get some good Zeppelin tones and dial up some Angus Young setting pretty easily. The attack was something I noticed very quickly. It had a touch response similar but more dynamic than a Marshall. It had that midrange but was different in that it felt a little more comfortable if I played sloppy than I would with a Plexi amp. I think it was a little more forgiving and a hair more saggy which would constitute the forgiveness of the amp. I pretty much stayed on the gain channel but occasionally switch over for some smooth warm cleans.

OVERALL OPINION

I was impressed with this amp. I think it had many attributes that put it above some Marshall amps. I love the vintage vibe it had and the better clean channel than say a JCM 2000. I was able to get a very good tone that could play in a band setting very well or record with.

I would recommend this amp to anyone looking for something different than a Marshall that wants to get a good OD channel and a smooth clean channel all in one amp. It is priced a bit high for where i think it is worth, but then so is a reissue JCM 800. I would pick this amp up on the used market since they hold a good value and seem very road worthy.